David Welsh brings an education professional’s perspective to manga programs at Japanese universities:
It can be worrying when a discipline becomes a bandwagon program (it’s hot, and everyone has to have one, even if the graduate placement rates aren’t great). But arts education isn’t known for the vast majority of its graduates working in their field of study (as my dust-covered theatre diploma will attest).
Heh! I graduated with my MFA in printmaking and never touched an etching plate again, so I’m inclined to agree with David. But the manga programs could work if they operate on a vocational school model, tightly tailoring what they teach to what the market demands and facilitating apprenticeships. (There wasn’t a big demand for etchers in the job market I graduated into.) David would like to see an American enroll in one of the programs and blog about it—and so would I!
Colleen Doran talks to Newsarama about her new book on how to draw shoujo manga. She talks about the different styles of shoujo manga, rather than lumping them all together, and it sounds like she includes a lot of basic drawing techniques.
I’m not giving them a fish, I am teaching them how to fish. I spend a lot of time going over eyes (I think I gave it 11 pages!) and the construction of different kinds of heads. I don’t show you a bunch of hairstyles and say “This is shoujo hair!” I show you how to draw locks of hair from basic shapes. I not only tried to be analytical, I try to make the reader analyze as well. if you can break things down into simple, bare elements, you can draw anything.
Just how late are Dark Horse’s manga? John Jakala is keeping track. In other Dark Horse news, Jog found a bargain on Appleseed.
On Manga Island, Tony Salvaggio takes the Sony e-reader for a test read and mostly likes what he sees.
Lots of news on ComiPress: Square Enix has a new magazine that will feature a new manga by the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist; a preview of the new Negima manga has appeared in Japan; and Viz is going to Central Park this weekend. Also, they pointed us to this Daily Yomiuri article about Osamu Tezuka’s Chinese inspiration.
Today’s Manga 101 story is better than most, with nice interviews with fans and a capsule history.
Emily reviews Idol Paradise and reminisces about a shoujo moment of her own.
Here’s a preview of Abandon the Old in Tokyo. (Via MangaCast, which will feed the previews directly to your podcatcher if you want them to.)
Broccoli employee Ardith gives her personal take on this week’s PWCW article on Broccoli.
Otaku-hunters stalk Akibahara looking for their prey in this story from the Mainichi Daily News (via Irresponsible Pictures). And why?
“Otaku are weak and they’ve got money, so we went after them,” one of the arrested youths told the police.
Shades of bank robber Willie Sutton:
When asked why he robbed banks, Sutton simply replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”
Apparently these days, it’s in Akibahara.